“It may vary in severity from insults, snubs or invasions of privacy to violation of intellectual property and unfair crediting of authors. In extreme cases it may even include coercing lab workers to sign away the rights to authorship or even intellectual property… lab workers in the US on visas may feel especially vulnerable“
From “Academic Bullies Leave No Trace”, Bio Impacts (2019) vol. 9:129“
academic bullying
Bullying is often framed as a repeating incident that occurs in grade school between two peers of differing social or physical power. However, unlike school bullying, academic bullying at higher education is often hidden and overlooked due to the institutional support that follows behind the perpetrator.
Below categories are the known types of academic bullying. Many of these are similar to the behaviors referred to as “abusive supervision” in the Management literature.
Those without * are forms of bullying that are particular to academic science.
Academic bullying occurs when MY supervisor:
Verbal Abuse
- Ridicules me*
- Reminds me of my past failures or mistakes*
- Consistently verbally aggressive or rude
- Tells me my thoughts or feelings are stupid*
- Tells me I’m incompetent*
- Expresses anger at me when he/she is mad for another reason*
Public Shaming
- Makes negative comments about me to others*
- Puts me down in front of others*
- Blames me to save him/herself embarrassment*
Isolation
- Gives me the silent treatment*
- Does not allow me to interact with my coworkers*
- Invades my privacy*
Academic Threatening
- Gives me a bad/unfair recommendation
- Cancels my job offers
- Cancels my Visa
- Doesn’t give me credit for my work*
- Unnecessarily lengthens my stay in his/her lab
- Takes away/reduces/redirects my funding
Institutional/Departmental Abuse
- Encourages others to mistreat me
- Encourages me to use code of silence
- Does not adequately support me to change my lab